postive reinforcement

[donald1954]

Hi everybody,

I am training with my birds for quite a while now, but always find it difficult to find a food-reward
for my training with them. It works for a while, than I have to find something better. How do you do it? Do you reduce the food before training lessons?

rgds Don

[gabbagabbawill]

What are you using as a food reward? Do you feed your bird this as part of their normal diet?

My conure loves papaya as a treat more than anything else. He only gets it during training.

Some people are advocates of a "training diet". I have never needed it with my bird, but if you attempt a training diet, you should be really careful and weigh the bird often to make sure they are getting enough food. It's actually more of an adjustment to their feeding feeding schedule, as you still allow them to eat their full meals each day, but these are given after training is done.

If it were me, I would try to find a treat that your bird absolutely loves and offer it only when training first, before adjusting their feeding schedule.

[Cage Cleaner]

Gh

[donald1954]

Hi, thanks for the answers. My four CAGS only play with millet. If I take millet spray in my hand the four jump all over me, not a chance for training. At the moment I use little pieces of nut, maize, sometimes fruit. I have the berries of firethorn in my deepfreezer, my birds go crazy over them, but they are a mess. They are not so eager for training when I use pieces out of their normal diet.
I hope my English is understandable, I live here in Germany almost all my life, my English is n ot benefitting. LOL

rgds Don

[gabbagabbawill]

If I understand you correctly, you're saying the birds are climbing onto you to get to the treats before training even begins. In this case, you'll first want to "train" them to take the treats.

Use a single piece of millet, or small sunflower kernels cut in thirds, as the other poster suggested.

If they climb on you at the site of their treats, then your first thing to do is train them to stay put for a treat! Once they understand that they have to produce the behaviour you want-- staying put-- to get a treat, then you can progress on to other training.

In your case, it may help if you hide the treats/ rewards in a small container or bag, so that they only see it when they produce the desired behaviour.

You may also want to use a "bridge", or clicker trainer to bridge the good behaviour with the reward. While I don't think a bridge is necessary, and can present it's own problems, it may help in your case to get started. You can always take the bridge away later once they get the idea that their good behaviour is rewarded.